


Chuck Saves Mike from Drowning

by Icetigris



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:04:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icetigris/pseuds/Icetigris





	Chuck Saves Mike from Drowning

Chuck took a step back from his newly rebuilt and repainted car. He had been taking driving lessons from Mike and hadn’t really taken it out since it got trashed in the race against the Duke of Detroit. It had never really gotten a proper christening of any kind either. Dutch stood beside him, admiring his work.  
  
“Nice work on the paint job, I’m glad to see you kept my lighting bolts after all,” said Dutch.  
Chuck grinned. “Thanks, there was no way I wasn’t going to redo those. They were totally awesome the first time around.” He waved a large sheet of something. “Buuuut, it’s not quite finished yet.” Chuck burnished the sheet against the door, but left it to apply another to the other side. The rest of the team walked in just as he finished.  
  
“Hey, Chuck. You wanted to show us something?” Mike asked.  
Chuck stood up, puffed out his chest, and put his hands on his hips. “Yep! Everybody, meet my new ride.” He pulled the sheet off the door, revealing a decal of a blue shark. “I call her Sawtooth.”  
  
All the other Burners (except Texas) ooed and ahhed at Chuck’s newly rebuilt car.  
“Texas still thinks Stronghorn is the coolest, but sharks are pretty awesome, so I guess you can keep the shark thing,” said Texas, who was met with a collective scolding from everyone.  
  
“Actually, what is up with the shark?” Julie asked.  
  
“Well, there are a few reasons for it, but mostly—” Chuck was cut off by the sound of alarms and alert screens popping up.  
  
“We can analyze your choice of animal mascots later, we got Kanebots near the lake. You ready, buddy?” Mike asked, clapping a hand on his shoulder.  
Chuck smiled nervously. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”  
“Glad to hear it.” Mike gave him a crooked grin and took off towards Mutt.  
Chuck opened the scissor doors and climbed into the driver seat, steeling himself for his first mission in _his_ car.   
  
“Alright, Sawtooth, let’s see what you can do.” Chuck turned the ignition and felt the engine come to life as over a dozen heads-up displays powered up on his dashboard and windshield. He had to suppress the urge to scream as he tore out of the garage beside the others.  
  
“So what are we up against?” Mike’s icon head asked Chuck as he thumbed through some data projected onto his windshield HUD.   
  
“Based on some communication signals I just intercepted, it seems like they’re going to try to seed the water with something, though I’m not sure what. I can’t do a full decryption while I’m driving,” Chuck responded, a little dejected.  
  
“That’s all the info Texas needs. Let’s go blow ‘em up!”  
  
“Hang on, if they’re going to seed the lake with something, blowing up the bots could just spread whatever it is farther,” Julie interjected as they came up on the lake.  
  
“Yeah, if it’s a chemical weapon or something, blowing them up is the last thing we want to do,” Dutch added.  
  
“Hang on, if I jam their communications uplink...” said Chuck as he moved to the back of the pack. “...I should be able to decode what’s coming downstream from there.”  
  
Mike nodded. “Okay, Julie, you distract them while Chuck intercepts their communications. Dutch, Texas, you’re with me, we’ll try to get them away from the water.”  
  
Just as Mike finished issuing commands, the shots began to fly. Chuck couldn’t help but scream as he swerved to avoid getting blown up. Julie threw holograms with 9Lives to lead the bots away from Sawtooth as a small group of bots broke off towards the water.  
  
“Oh, no you don’t!” said Mike as he jumped out of Mutt with his spark staff in hand.   
  
“Mike, wait, they’ve got biologicals in there!” Chuck shouted as he finished decoding the bots’ communications stream, but Mike was already disabling the bot’s navigation system with a face full of flaming chainsaw. He jumped to another bot that flew by just in time to get attacked by the disabled bot’s payload: a swarm of angry, cyborg barracudas that were modified for flight.  
  
“What the...? I knew Kane was twisted, but this is just bizarre,” Dutch said as he opened fire on the cloud of fish.  
  
“Clearly R&D’s been up to some weird shit lately,” added Julie as she started firing at bots, now knowing their payload was something that needed to be blown up.  
  
“Looks like we got some big fish to fry!” Texas one-lined as he fired his Stronghorn cannon at the bots.  
  
“Texas...”  
  
As the others face-palmed over Texas’s one-liner, Mike dispatched the remaining flying, biting fish with his staff, but was distracted by the cyborg swarm just enough to get rammed by another Kane bot.  
  
“MIKE!”  
  
He fell into the water like a ragdoll, knocked unconscious from the impact with the bot. Chuck punched it and skidded to a stop next to the water. He jumped out of Sawtooth and immediately stripped down to his underwear.  
  
“Cover me, this lake is deep,” Chuck broadcasted to the team before swiping his fingers across his eyes to engage his nanogoggles. They shimmered an iridescent blue.  
  
“Chuck, are you crazy?!” Julie shouted as Chuck clambered up a rock overhanging the deep part of the lake.  
  
He swiped his hand over his chest, which lit up shimmering blue panels that followed the contours of his muscles all over his body.   
  
Texas cocked an eyebrow. “Uhh, what’s he doing?”  
  
Chuck dove into the deep water in one fluid movement, bringing his hands to a point in front of him just before hitting the water. The other Burners watched in awe from their icon cams as he shot through the water.   
  
Chuck could feel the depth bearing down on him as he lost some momentum from drag, but he knew just when to switch from gravity to swimming. The nanoplates all over his body drew dissolved oxygen from the water directly into his bloodstream, which allowed him to use his powerful dolphin kick to propel him towards Mike, who was still sinking. A heads-up display in his nanogoggles told Chuck his depth, oxygen saturation, distance to his target, and approximately how much time he had before a non-augmented person had before hypoxia set in.  
  
 _C’mon, Mikey, just a little further..._  
  
The bottom was nowhere in sight; the lake was a deep, disused quarry. Chuck could almost reach him, but his nanogills alerted him that they were almost out of power and he’d need to resurface soon. Just as the power ran out on his breathing augs, he grabbed ahold of Mike and sped towards the surface. He had less than a minute to bring Mike almost 15 meters back up to the surface.  
  
The other Burners had dispatched the last of the Kanebots and had gotten out of their cars to watch the water for their friends.   
  
“Should Texas go in after them?” Dutch and Julie didn’t even hear him.  
  
Just as Texas started to kick off his shoes to go after them, Chuck broke through the surface of the water with a desperate gasp. Mike was limp in his arms. He wasn’t breathing.

  
They all ran into the water to help drag Mike to shore. As soon as he was clear of the water, Chuck started giving him mouth to mouth.   
  
“C’mon, Mikey!” Chuck breathed as he compressed his chest for the fifth time. “Stop screwing around...!”  
  
Mike rolled onto his side and coughed up a lungful of water. He wheezed to catch his breath as Chuck collapsed from exhaustion and relief next to him. As they all breathed a collective sigh of relief, Mike looked over at Chuck and couldn’t help but notice...  
  
“Hey, uh, where’d your clothes go, buddy?” Mike couldn’t help but grin a little.  
  
Chuck looked like a drowned rat, all the grace and power of his swimming completely forgotten at this point; he was just a wet, gangly teenager in nothing but a pair of dark blue briefs. “Dude, do you realize how much drag I would have had to deal with if I hadn’t stripped down?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized that he was lying on a beach in his underwear, surrounded by his friends. He turned bright red and ran to find his clothes.  
  
The rest of the Burners couldn’t help but giggle as he ran off, but as soon as he was out of immediate earshot, they lit up.  
  
“Dude, did you _see_ that?”  
“Who knew he was such a good swimmer?”  
“Texas totally could have done that. Maybe.”  
“Did you see his augs? I mean, I knew he had a ton of them, but _damn_ , those were sweet!”  
“Did you get it on video?”  
“Oh man, we’re totally gonna have to watch this when we get back.”  
  
Chuck came back with his pants on and his shirt in hand. “What are we watching when we get back?”  
“You, swimming like a friggin’ SHARK!” Texas exclaimed, posing to emphasize the point.  
Chuck put on his shirt then grinned. “I guess you guys know why I picked that for Sawtooth then.”  
As it dawned on them, Mike stood up and clapped his hand on Chuck’s shoulder. “Totally badass, dude. And thanks for saving me.”  
Chuck blushed again. “Ahh, it was nothing.”


End file.
